


The Emperor

by enby0angel



Series: Enby's Iruka Winter Bingo [2]
Category: Naruto
Genre: ??? I GUESS, Discord: Umino Hours, Divination, Divination as a Kekkei Genkai, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Iruka is Tired(TM), Owl Summons, Summons, Tarot, Tarot Cards, Tarot Readings, Tea, Umino Hours Winter Bingo, Umino Iruka Adopts Uzumaki Naruto, Uzushio, kekkei genkai
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-02
Updated: 2020-12-02
Packaged: 2021-03-10 06:47:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,921
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27829948
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/enby0angel/pseuds/enby0angel
Summary: Iruka is worried about Naruto, and the Emperor insists on being heard
Relationships: Umino Iruka & Uzumaki Naruto
Series: Enby's Iruka Winter Bingo [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2034502
Comments: 4
Kudos: 48
Collections: The Umino Hours Winter Bingo 2020





	The Emperor

**Author's Note:**

> Another tarot fic! Wooooooo! I've been sitting on Iruka having divination as a kekkei genkai for AAAAAGES and this gave me the kick I needed. I will be writing more of this. Don't test me. Or do, it's up to you. Cheers to DarkGoddessDoll and everyone in the Umino Hours server who encouraged this idea!! You make my cartomancer heart sing! <3
> 
> This is also the first appearance of Chiyo! I'll definitely be revisiting her as well, Iruka having owl summons is another idea that the discord encouraged me to do. I just think they suit him so well!!
> 
> This was written for the Umino Hours Discord's Winter Bingo Event! This was square R1: Making Hot Tea. This has little to do with tea but OH WELL! Tea is good for when you're doing tarot. Or so I've heard. I don't drink tea, I'm more of a hot chocolate person... anyway.
> 
> I hope you enjoy!! <3

Iruka sighed, rolling his neck as the kettle boiled. He stretched his arms up and out, working out the cricks from sitting in the one position for so long. Nobody told him when he became a teacher that grading papers would be so painful. Absently he wondered how he could best introduce the new material to Naruto, who was trailing behind and struggling as per usual. Hie homework was full of stream of consciousness and his answers were jumbled and all over the place, with barely any of it being correct. If Iruka looked at it sideways – as he had always been wont to do – he could see where Naruto was coming from and it was getting there, but he just needed to find a better way to drill the information into Naruto’s head.

Naruto had the potential to be something amazing, Iruka could see it without a doubt despite the boy being only seven years old, he just had to figure out how to help him get there. Naruto didn’t have parents or siblings to help him with his homework like other students did, or natural book smarts like Sasuke or Sakura. Iruka knew those struggles all too well, having experienced something very similar in his own youth.

The kettle began to whistle and he was brought out of his thoughts. Humming quietly to himself, he poured the water into the cup he had waiting for him. He pulled the blanket he had wrapped around himself closer – the cool change had come through already, causing him to close his windows early and rug up as the sun was going down.

Mug of tea prepared, he made his way back to the table. He placed the mug down and began meticulously clearing up his students’ work and his own notes for the next day, having decided that he had done enough for tonight and would come back to it over the weekend. Grading papers was not something that should be done while your mind is not quite with the program, Iruka had discovered long ago.

There was a hoot and a tap on the window, and Iruka turned to see Chiyo resting on the sill. He smiled, moving over to open the window to let her in. “Chiyo-sama,” he greeted.

“Iruka-kun,” the owl replied, gliding into the room and settling herself on the back of his chair. Iruka quickly shut the window behind her again, shivering slightly. “How are you this evening, child?”

Iruka bowed his head a little. “I am well, if not a bit tired. I’ve been marking homework for hours, it gets a bit mind-numbing after a while.”

Chiyo hooted in amusement. “Ah, but this is what you chose to do,” she reasoned.

“Yes, it is,” Iruka agreed, “and I don’t regret my decision for a second, I just wish that the workload didn’t make me go cross-eyed.” Chiyo gave a few quick hoots, her equivalent of a laugh. “DO you require anything of me tonight, Chiyo-sama?”

“Nothing in particular.” Chiyo ruffled her feathers, the impossibly dark blue of a clear summer night shimmering in the warm candlelight that Iruka had set up on his table. The silver spot above her eyes almost glowed. “Perhaps I just wished for the company. You have not summoned any of us in a few days, and I wished to see you.”

Iruka bowed his head again and swept an arm out. “You are always welcome, of course.” Then he smiled apologetically. “I’m sorry for not summoning you, time gets away from me when it comes around to graduation season.”

“Of course,” Chiyo soothed, “I am not blaming you. I understand completely, though I hope you are not working yourself too hard?”

Laughing, Iruka came up to the table, pausing to run a hand over Chiyo’s feathers. “Being a teacher is always hard work, my friend. It’s never-ending.” He took a cautious sip of his tea and found that it was just at a temperature he could stand, before going back to his task of clearing up. He put papers in folders and folders in his bag, making sure everything would be organised for when he came back to it the next day.

“Something troubles you, my child,” Chiyo observed. She hopped onto the table, talons clicking against the wood. “What is on your mind?”

Iruka sighed. There was no point in trying to avoid the question or even sneakily change the subject with Chiyo, she was old and stubborn and wouldn’t budge until she got a satisfactory answer. So, he lowered himself into his chair and wrapped his hands around his mug of tea. He took a long sip, trying to gather the words, before answering. “I’m worried about Naruto,” he admitted. “As always. I feel like I’m missing something about him, something that might help him in the long run with his learning, but I can’t figure out what it is.”

Chiyo made a thoughtful noise. “Describe this feeling for me,” she requested.

Leaning back and looking at the ceiling, Iruka tried to gather his thoughts. “It’s like there’s a rope,” he finally said. “He’s holding onto one end and he’s holding on tight, but there’s nothing securing the other end. It’s just,” he gestured with one hand, “flailing about in the wind. And I’m trying my best to catch it but I can’t reach it, and I don’t know how to.”

“I see.” Chiyo hooted lowly. “Have you asked your cards about this?”

“Many times,” Iruka affirmed. “They try their best to help but nothing seems to have worked so far. I’m not sure if there’s a problem on his end or on mine.”

“Perhaps on both?” Chiyo stepped closer to him, tugging at his sleeve with her beak. “Would you consult your cards now, while I am here? I’d like to see what they have to say for myself, if you don’t mind.”

Iruka smiled. “Of course I don’t mind.”

“Thank you. I don’t believe I’ve ever witnessed you use them in such a way before.”

“No, I don’t believe you have.”

With that, Iruka stood once again and moved to the bookshelf in his living room – there was a particular box sitting on a shelf just above his eye level, decorated with sigils and seals passed down to him from his mother and his mother’s mother. He came from a long line of shinobi who had been sharing their stories and their kekkei genkai with their children for centuries. He brought the box to the table and allowed Chiyo to inspect it before undoing the trap seals with touches of chakra to the centres of the patterns he had painted onto the box himself. Inside the box were a mix of things – some gemstones he had spent years collecting, bundles of herbs wrapped tightly in spring, a pendulum on a chain that hummed with chakra as soon as he laid eyes on it, and a deep blue cloth.

Iruka took the cloth and laid it out on the table, smoothing it as best he could. Stars dotted the fabric, constellations that could be found in the skies above the ruins of Uzushio. Beneath the cloth in the box was a pouch of velvet that shimmered blue and purple and pink, a galaxy trapped in fabric. But inside the pouch was what Iruka was looking for – a deck of cards that all but jumped into his hands when he untied the pouch. Each card crackled with chakra, like an electric shock to his system, and he smiled. It had been a while since he asked for such guidance from them.

“They are important to you,” Chiyo quietly murmured. “Sometimes I forget how much so, until I see you holding them in your hands.”

“It’s my kekkei genkai,” Iruka replied. “It’s a tradition in my family that we create our own deck once we begin learning the old ways. My mother called it the Fool’s Journey.”

“Why call it that?” Chiyo questioned.

Iruka smiled at the elder summons. “The Fool is the very first card in the deck. It symbolises new beginnings, a fresh start, a new journey. So, ‘The Fool’s Journey’ means beginning your journey into divination.” Chiyo hooted in understanding, hopping a bit closer as her curious nature got the better of her.

“I have seen you use them for simple readings,” Chiyo pondered. “Simply picking one card out of a deck. I have never seen you ask a question beforehand.”

“Every reading requires a question,” Iruka explained, “but the simple readings are mostly like, ‘What should I keep in mind today?’ If that makes sense.”

“It does,” Chiyo affirmed. “This is all very interesting to me. I’d like to share this with my parliament.”

“Of course you may.”

The first spread yielded nothing that Iruka did not already know – the Emperor for himself ( _authority figure_ ), the Fool Reversed for Naruto ( _naivety, recklessness_ ), and the Four of Wands for their relationship ( _community, support)_. So he sighed, and tried again.

A nd again.

And again.

“Okay!” Iruka exclaimed, throwing his hands in the air as for the _fifth time in a row_ the Emperor jumped into his hand. “I get it! I’m an authority figure to Naruto, that is nothing new!”

“Perhaps it means something else that you’re not understanding,” Chiyo suggested, eyeing the card. “He seems rather insistent upon telling you something.”

Iruka sighed, putting his face in his hands. “I’ve never seen the Emperor so stubborn before,” he groaned. “The only time he ever shows up is when I’m doing readings about Naruto.”

“So, he represents authority,” Chiyo began reasoning, hooting thoughtfully, “but does he mean anything else?”

Iruka chewed on his bottom lip for a moment. “He also represents fatherhood,” he admitted, “but I don’t understand how that would be relevant, I’m not Naruto’s father.”

Chiyo straightened up, fluffing out her feathers. “No, you are not,” she agreed. “But perhaps that is not the point. Perhaps what he is trying to tell you is that Naruto  _needs_ a fatherly figure in his life. Perhaps that is supposed to be you.”

The Emperor stared up at him from where he sat on the table, like he was staring into Iruka’s very soul. His card seemed to vibrate with chakra as Chiyo spoke, as if agreeing with her words.  He picked up the card, studying it. The Emperor’s face was stern but also soft, firm but kind, with eyes that would look upon his children with all the love in the world but also be prepared to face a bloody battle in order to protect them.

“Maybe you’re right,” Iruka murmured. He looked over to the side to where the Fool sat innocently, almost out of the way. He picked that card up as well, and sat it down next to the Emperor on the table. They seemed almost peaceful together. “Maybe you _are_ right.”

Chiyo flapped her wings and hopped up onto Iruka’s shoulder. “The boy needs you, Iruka-kun.” She nibbled on his ear gently, almost lovingly. “And I think you need him just as much.” Iruka brought a hand up and stroked her feathers, and she hooted in content.

“What would I do without you, Chiyo-sama?” he asked, sighing.

Chiyo made an amused sound. “I think you would be just fine, my child,” she answered. “But I am glad we met.”

“As am I.”

  
  


Not very long after that, Iruka-sensei became Iruka-nii-san outside of the classroom, and Iruka couldn’t have been happier about it.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks so much for reading!! Comments and kudos are always appreciated! <3


End file.
